As it turns out, the man Andy fell in love with is more of a mystery than she first thought. When they give their relationship another chance, it's not long before Lex's secrets begin to unravel, threatening their happily ever after.
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Just like that, we were texting again.
It had been awkward and clumsy at first, not knowing what to talk about, how to return to normal, to before all the shit show. The first few texts had felt forced and somehow cringey, on both sides, but we hadn't given up. Little by little, our conversations gained in confidence, even though we never talked about anything serious.
Most of it was us trying to find something to explain why I was suddenly not leaving anymore. Apparently, pretending that a me from the future, who had arrived in a modified DeLorean – a reference lost on Lex – and had handed in my resignation instead of present-time me, wasn't a good plan. He had argued that it would still be me, so it would raise the question as to why would future me want to make me quit? As if something terrible would happen if I stayed. Bad enough for me to go back in time to make myself quit.
This had led to us talking about time travel, loopholes, and numerous theories. We talked about the various schools of thoughts when it came to temporal paradox, disrupting the timeline, changing the past, thus altering the future and making the time traveler not time travel in the first place, which meant he couldn't actually disrupt the past.
The conversation was extremely nerdy but also enthralling, especially when chatting with a mind like Lex's, and it had taken most of our Sunday. By the end of it, we were both very clear on where we stood regarding time travel, but we hadn't come up with another way to explain my change of heart to HR.
As much as I didn't want to go that way, Lex's idea made a lot of sense and could be the perfect justification. It was a common maneuver, and according to him, several employees resorted to it every year. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I despised the fact that I would get a raise out of this, which made me pass as greedy. Kelex had been incredibly generous to me, and I hated to think others might find me vain and ungrateful.
Lex had assured me that these matters stayed with the human resources department, and no one else would hear of it. Since I had luckily – cowardly – not told anyone about my departure, I didn't have to justify myself to anyone.
I was making my best not to show it, but I was actually nervous about what would happen from now on. I didn't know how we should act when at Kelex, and out of it. We would try to make it work, but we weren't anything official yet. The words boyfriend and girlfriend had been thrown around, but that was it.
Things would probably happen on their own, organically. All we had to do, for now, was to focus on repairing our broken relationship.
I hadn't told Kate or Tammy, worried that they might judge me or try to reason with me. Kate had been incredibly supportive and present during those horrible six weeks. I'd talked to her on the phone for hours, and she'd even managed to spend two weekends in Seattle for emotional support. I didn't want her to think it all had been for nothing, now that I was working on getting back with Lex. Or getting with Lex, period, given our previous status.
